I bought a new tennis racket a couple of weeks ago only to find that it wasn’t strung properly and didn’t play well. No problem, I got one of the professionals at the club I play at to restring it properly. I left the racket late one evening and early the next day, hurrying by the empty pro shop on the way to the courts, I saw my racket left out, collected and paid for it at reception without really checking too carefully – only to get a call from the professional a couple of hours later to say he hadn’t restrung it yet!
I was rushing and made a quick (and stupid) decision, easily remedied but annoying. Very recently I saw this on a transaction. The other side sent back some comments on a document, promising a mark-up to follow. I pointed this out but our sales team was in a hurry and insisted we respond straight away by email, which we did. The next day we received the promised mark-up - which actually solved the problems we had gone back with. No harm was in fact done, but we could have damaged the negotiation relationship quite easily.
These days as a professional person everybody wants an instant response and technology supports this. Not content with email many clients use IM and text to seek advice by return. Many years ago in a law firm it was quite common for all the partners to get together and look through the letters the firm received that morning, and then make sure they were all understood and properly dealt with.
That would be impossible these days given the expansion of professional firms and of the means of communication. Each of several hundred lawyers could receive upwards of two hundred or more emails alone every day, which is impossible to monitor in this way.
Still that does not mean we have to rush when we reply to requests for advice, and if we do more often than not we make mistakes. It’s also not good for our health and the workplace generally. An article in the Wall Street Journal concluded “Rushing creates anxiety and resentment among co-workers” and can create and exacerbate stress.
And not rushing is even more important in other disciplines such as flying. The cockpit checks have to be all carried out before starting, even if a flight slot is missed. One of aviation's worst disaster, the terrible KLM / Pan-Am accident at Tenerife was due in part to schedule pressure problems experienced by both flight crews.
Dwight D Eisenhower the 34th president of the United States summed it up when he said “Let’s not make our mistakes in a hurry.”
I was rushing and made a quick (and stupid) decision, easily remedied but annoying. Very recently I saw this on a transaction. The other side sent back some comments on a document, promising a mark-up to follow. I pointed this out but our sales team was in a hurry and insisted we respond straight away by email, which we did. The next day we received the promised mark-up - which actually solved the problems we had gone back with. No harm was in fact done, but we could have damaged the negotiation relationship quite easily.
These days as a professional person everybody wants an instant response and technology supports this. Not content with email many clients use IM and text to seek advice by return. Many years ago in a law firm it was quite common for all the partners to get together and look through the letters the firm received that morning, and then make sure they were all understood and properly dealt with.
That would be impossible these days given the expansion of professional firms and of the means of communication. Each of several hundred lawyers could receive upwards of two hundred or more emails alone every day, which is impossible to monitor in this way.
Still that does not mean we have to rush when we reply to requests for advice, and if we do more often than not we make mistakes. It’s also not good for our health and the workplace generally. An article in the Wall Street Journal concluded “Rushing creates anxiety and resentment among co-workers” and can create and exacerbate stress.
And not rushing is even more important in other disciplines such as flying. The cockpit checks have to be all carried out before starting, even if a flight slot is missed. One of aviation's worst disaster, the terrible KLM / Pan-Am accident at Tenerife was due in part to schedule pressure problems experienced by both flight crews.
Dwight D Eisenhower the 34th president of the United States summed it up when he said “Let’s not make our mistakes in a hurry.”
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